“Thanks, my dear Richard; and, I pray thee, deign To speak the truth--does all this love remain, And all this joy? for views and flights sublime, Ardent and tender, are subdued by time. Speakst thou of her to whom thou madest thy vows, Of my fair sister, of thy lawful spouse? Or art thou talking some frail love about, The rambling fit, before th’ abiding gout?” Nay, spare me, Brother, an adorer spare: Love and the gout! thou wouldst not these compare?“ 10 “Yea, and correctly; teasing ere they come, They then confine their victim to his home: In both are previous feints and false attacks, Both place the grieving patient on their racks: They both are ours, with all they bring, for life, ’Tis not in us t’ expel or gout or wife; On man a kind of dignity they shed, A sort of gloomy pomp about his bed; Then, if he leaves them, go where’er he will, They have a claim upon his body still; 20 Nay, when they quit him, as they sometimes do, What is there left t’ enjoy or to pursue?-- But dost thou love this woman?” “O! beyond What I can tell thee of the true and fond: Hath she not soothed me, sick, enrich’d me, poor, And banish’d death and misery from my door? Has she not cherish’d every moment’s bliss, And made an Eden of a world like this? When Care would strive with us his watch to keep, Has she not sung the snarling fiend to sleep? 30 And when Distress has look’d us in the face, Has she not told him, ‘thou art not Disgrace?’” “I must behold her, Richard; I must see This patient spouse who sweetens misery-- But didst thou need, and wouldst thou not apply?-- Nay thou wert right--but then how wrong was I!” “My indiscretion was----” “No more repeat; Would I were nothing worse than indiscreet;-- But still there is a plea that I could bring, Had I the courage to describe the thing.” 40 “Then, thou too, Brother, couldst of weakness tell; Thou, too, hast found the wishes that rebel Against the sovereign reason; at some time Thou hast been fond, heroic, and sublime; Wrote verse, it may be, and for one dear maid The sober purposes of life delay’d; From year to year the fruitless chase pursued, And hung enamour’d o’er the flying good. Then, be thy weakness to a Brother shown, And give him comfort who displays his own.” 50 “Ungenerous youth! dost thou presuming ask A man so grave his failings to unmask? What if I tell thee of a waste of time, That on my spirit presses as a crime, Wilt thou despise me?--I, who, soaring, fell } So late to rise--Hear then the tale I tell; } Who tells what thou shalt hear, esteems his hearer well. } * * * * *